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Some very good news for the children
of rural Thane and Nasik districts of Maharashtra
The Governent of Maharashtra's Department of Education (Maharashtra
Rajya Prathamik Shikshan Parishad or MPSP, the executing body
for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan) and Pratham will work together
to ensure that every child in the government schools of Thane
(rural) and Nasik (rural) learns to read and write. There
are over 900,000 children in the 6-14 age group in the rural
areas of these districts. It is estimated that more than half
of these children cannot read simple books and the others
are not very fluent.
The "Reading Program" is conceptualized by Pratham,
who will be the resource agency working with government functionaries
and school teachers. The primary responsibility of executing
the program will lie with the government system while Pratham
will delegate two resource persons per district to assist
in the work.
The program will begin by piloting in one block in each of
the districts (about 100 villages per block). The pilot will
help the government system and Pratham to understand the difficulties
in executing the "reading program" in rural settings.
While school teachers will be responsible to ensure that their
students learn to read over the next three months, Pratham
will work in about 50 villages with community volunteers (balsakhi).
Depending upon the relative results, the government will decide
on adoption of the best suited model for district-wide coverage.
The program, which is expected to affect nearly 900,000 children
by the end of 2003, is expected to additionally cost about
Rs. 20 per child if entirely implemented (successfully) by
teachers, while adding paid volunteers would cost another
Rs. 10 per child-month. 20% cost of the pilot will be borne
by Pratham. In the scale-up phase, it is expected that the
program will be fully funded by Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
This is the first rural program of its kind in the country
in many ways. Also, it represents a new strategic leap for
Pratham, which focused on urban centers as strategic points
from which to resource rural areas. Work in Thane city and
Nasik city began in 2001 with assistance from Ballarpur Industries
and continues to grow to cover the whole city.
Congratulations to Usha Rane (usharane@pratham.org)
and her team for the achievement.
Watch this space for more news about the Pratham quantum leap
for children.
Madhav Chavan
Director,
Resource Center
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